B. WE MUST CRITICALLY ANALYZE TECHNOLOGY, NOT REPEATING PAST MISTAKES,

WE MUST NOT REPEAT THE ERROR WE MADE IN UNCRITICALLY ACCEPTING THE AUTOMOBILE

Paul Van Slambrouck, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor, The Christian Science Monitor, December 28, 1999, SECTION: USA; THE LONGER VIEW; Pg. 2 TITLE: In world of high tech, everyone is an island // acs-EE2001

Loka's Sclove says the lack of broad public questioning about computers and the Internet is similar to the early euphoria over the automobile. "The benefits are personally experienced while the downside is more diffused," he says. For automobiles, it took decades before people realized that while the auto added mobility and convenience individually, collectively it brought smog and unsustainable development patterns.

Theorists also predict the widespread use of prefabricated biological parts to replace our worn-out organs, so we might live hundreds of years. But Joy also worries that malevolent computer nerds will create devices that possess a) unlimited potential for destruction, b) a total absence of conscience and c) the ability to self-replicate.

He writes: "I think it is no exaggeration to say we are on the cusp of the further perfection of extreme evil, an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond that which weapons of mass destruction bequeathed to the nation-states, on to a surprising and terrible empowerment of extreme individuals."